There is no obvious reason why the Western powers should care whether it was the friends or the family of Mohammed which took over the leadership of his movement upon his death. However there is plainly an agenda led by the USA to support the Sunnis in their spiralling regional conflict with the Shia.
This is not hard to rationalise. The ultra wealthy members of the Gulf regimes continue to act as the West’s proxies in the region and provide harbour to its neo-imperialist armed forces, while at the same time maintaining themselves a obscurantist version of Islam which would have horrified Mohammed and breaks virtually every precept of the Koran, particularly as regards treatment of women and of minority religions within their territory.
In Bahrain the large Shia majority is brutally repressed with active western collusion; in Saudi Arabia the Shia minority in the East is degraded. Iran is the great Shia bogey, and the West is so determined to maintain it as “the enemy” that they refuse the most basic diplomatic openings. The UK turned down an invitation to be represented at the inauguration of a new more moderate President and hold initial conversations. Meanwhile, Shia groups have mustered the only effective military resistance to Israeli aggression, and in Syria a Shia friendly regime is under intense pressure from the West and its Gulf allies. Peculiarly, in Iraq Western invasion resulted in the installation of a Shia regime, but that was only one of the entirely unforeseen consequences of that most stupid of invasions, and the Western response is to try to split up the country and fuel multiple insurgencies.
Meantime the CIA have now got a controlled and pro-Israeli military dictatorship back in power in Egypt, while the extraordinary complicity of the mainstream media and entire political class in the United States has never been more evident than in the acceptance that the military coup will not be designated a military coup. The manipulation of Western public opinion in the Syrian chemical weapons episode has, rarely, been too blatant to work. But events in Turkey and Egypt have shown that western public opinion is easily manipulated by the “secularist” angle. No matter how ugly political forces are – and in Turkey the Kemalists are very ugly – call them “secularist” and hide the rest, and you can attempt to topple elected governments in their favour with the full throated support of the media cheerleaders.
Last night’s vote in the Commons is welcome, but a blip. It owes more to political tribalism than to principle. Miliband and New Labour did not oppose military action, they merely wanted to be seen to be dictating the terms. As neither Tories nor Labour were prepared to accept the other’s terms for military action, the anti war minority could combine with the tribalists of each to make sure everything got defeated. Good but fortuitous.
The media are still in full war cry. Ashdown has never been so ashamed, apparently. He is not ashamed by extraordinary rendition and our torturing people. He is not ashamed of our responsibility for the death of hundreds of thousands in Iraq, with 2,000 people a day still meeting terrible deaths. He is ashamed that we don’t respond to the deaths of children by chemical weapons, we don’t really know at whose hands, by blasting to pieces a lot more children. Well, Paddy, you are a merciless fool who thinks a spiral of death is the answer, and I have never been more ashamed that I was for most of my adult life a member of the Liberal Democrats.
Ashdown did say bitterly that there was now no point in having such large armed forces. Hallelujah! The danger to the establishment that people might realise that spending more on weapons systems than on hospitals is a poor choice, is one reason this is not over. Much is at stake for the security state. Expect a mounting barrage of propaganda on the need for action in Syria. This is just the start.
“Fred the data trickling out, indicates the ordnance were provided by the Saudi and these had been placed in the usual tunnels rebels operate from, but the nasty and noxious smells and side effects of proximity to these had compelled the said rebels to scupper out of the tunnels and sleep and fight from various “unsafe” locations, that has resulted in the deaths of many of the rebels.”
There is data trickling out saying all sorts of things. You are free to believe the bits that suit your agenda but I think I’ll just wait for the UN report.
Anon at 3.24 or whatever, wouldn’t you say that buggery at Harrow is just as big a crime as it is at Eton?
Privy Council Terms. Very Secure.
Syrian Rebels tell AP reporter they mishandled chemical weapons, causing accident
There is a lot more of this kind of journalism, alongside with the shameful medjia stenographers lying through their fucking tiny little teeth. It is a wonder the insurance for the studios still is finding insurers with all these liars wearing their pants in the said studios.
You want to get fucking tetchy do so, but not in my fucking time! Fucking UN is not there to find out who dun it? But if the Chemical weapons were used! Plus you have a short memory of UNSCOM and Butler episode in Iraq, don’t you?
“here is a lot more of this kind of journalism, alongside with the shameful medjia stenographers lying through their fucking tiny little teeth”
That’s because most of them are reporting from their hotel accommodations, you know free Wi-Fi and continental breakfast, Fedup.
Wire feeds and Appletinis with free appetizers.
The downing street demo the other day was odd. The stop the war speakers were giving it the same old same old from the podium to a crowd herded into a little space on the pavement. The crowd, of maybe 500, wasn’t listening. Well some were but many, beyond the normal number and types, were jostling with the coppers and broke onto the street. In fact we were led by a woman with a pram who was shouting “enough talking” as she sat in the road and we all followed. The cops tried, without great effort, to move us. They then gave way and simply redirected traffic, so no big shakes. The coppers didn’t seem at any stage ready for any kettle and they certainly didn’t kettle. Press tv and al jazeera were poised gagging for the coppers to get physical and presumably someone on high decided they were not going to give them those images. So we blocked whitehall and shouted anti-war stuff along downing st for a couple of hours.
But meantime the stwc speakers were carrying on as if nothing was happening, as though their tired speeches were relevant when the crowd had moved on and away to at least some action. There was even one bloke going amongst the crowd, saying he was one of the main organisers, warning people that the police were about to kettle (“you do what you want with that information I’m just telling you”). I think my point is that the crowd was not listening to propaganda from the elites nor the control freakery of the trots. People were thinking for themselves. Beautiful.
Jives @11.17
Paxman isn’t the only Beeb Grandee with good BAP connections; wee Jim Naughtie is on the advisory board-
http://www.britishamericanproject.org/advisoryboard.asp
The wailing and gnashing of teeth about the ‘damaged special relationship’ now issuing from these whores, at both the Beeb and in the Murdoch press, will continue to provide instructive amusement to viewers and readers over the next few days.
“You want to get fucking tetchy do so, but not in my fucking time! Fucking UN is not there to find out who dun it? But if the Chemical weapons were used! Plus you have a short memory of UNSCOM and Butler episode in Iraq, don’t you?”
After I’ve seen the report I’ll decide for myself about it’s credibility.
Like I said, you suit yourself, believe what you want to believe, I’ll wait and see.
@John Spencer-Davis.
Thanks for your thoughts tonight.
And thanks Ben for asking.
Regarding “Open Letter to Barack Obama.”
What a chilling piece, though I had to smile at the FPI’s appropriately named Director of External Affairs.
I’m turning in, relieved that people in Syria are not being protected to death tonight by another Nato blitzkrieg.
And still holding onto a small flame of optimism that we may be witnessing a turning of the tide in relation to how far our societies can be herded into barbarism.
Goodnight All.
Wow – using the self-signed certificate key I am now connected with
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_CAMELLIA_256_CBC_SHH, 256 bit keys
Great report, Phil.
It’s almost as if you’re saying that these organized events are designed to quell protest.
There’s a great discussion of this kind of thing in Bahktin’s idea of the Carnivalesque:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivalesque
Phil you are so right mate. The fucking tossers from stwc are just beyond the pale, I am certain they are the recruits of the sis roaming free among the lambs. These tossers are going to fracture the antiwar if they carry on much longer with their control freakery! In fact I am getting ready to knock a few teeth out in the next fucking instance of one of these tossers coming alongside me and ordering me about or telling me they have organised the shit.
Well done the woman, well done the lot of you! Be proud and stand tall, when all the other wankers choose to kowtow to the warmongers you and the rest of the people there stood up and made sure the pampered fuckers know what the score is.
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_CAMELLIA_256_CBC_SHA
Phil; That was a fascinating 1st person account and it is rather odd that I happened to be thinking of the RTV/press/ al jal conundrum for me. I notice they are the best at reporting worldwide news, that national outlets fail to address. Manipulating the story is not a good harbinger for the putative stakeholders of Media Credibility. I thought, they said something akin to Obama’s; that his would be the most ‘transparent administration’.
You always have to trust but verify.
Or to put it simply, it is now possible to use a real mail address on this blog anonymously to any snoopers (unless they have server access). Well there’s potential encrypted gravatar leakage which can be blocked if really paranoid).
Not something I’ve bothered about before but thought I’d point it out.
Fedup 31 Aug, 2013 – 12:25 am
“Syrian Rebels tell AP reporter they mishandled chemical weapons, causing accident”
The story is coming from he likes of infowars and is repeated by the likes of voice of russia. I should imagine an AP reporter would leak to a more credible outlet even if AP were not running with it (which I believe they would if they had it). The journalist named also writes for salon.com. Do you imagine she gave the story to infowars rather than salon? Come on.
Humans so credulous. The BBC tonight tells us that any action against Syria is one “that Britain will take no part in.”
Err, hyper activity in Cyprus – Note lies here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/typhoons-deploying-to-cyprus
Regardless of a vote in Parliament, Britain’s SAS are deployed to Syria from Cyprus. British submarine HMS Tireless is in the East Med/Gulf and at state 1 condition yankee – wartime readiness.
Britian is mandated under the ‘special relationship’ to defend America.
It really must be the end of the world when I’m quoting Sarah Palin
https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/373587287546036224
Fedup. More on that story re rebels owning up –
The rebels noted it was a result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them.
“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
As Gavlak reports, Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels died in a weapons storage tunnel. The father stated the weapons were provided to rebel forces by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, describing them as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”
“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K’. “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_08_30/Syrian-rebels-take-responsibility-for-the-chemical-attack-admitting-the-weapons-were-provided-by-Saudis-1203/?from=menu
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_08_30/Syrian-rebels-take-responsibility-for-the-chemical-attack-admitting-the-weapons-were-provided-by-Saudis-1203/?from=menu
Re the the Comment at 5 ;36pm
Most disgusting comment i have ever seen on this Blog,
i agree if it wasn’t hab, it should be taken Down,
Good to see you back Mary
“Obama’s destruction of US credibility goes far beyond diplomacy. It is likely that this autumn or winter, and almost certainly in 2014, the US will face severe economic crisis.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/08/30/america-totally-discredited-paul-craig-roberts/
“GEAB N°60 (December 16, 2011)”
http://www.leap2020.eu/Global-systemic-crisis-USA-2012-2016-An-insolvent-and-ungovernable-country_a8481.html
@AlcAnon
I’m no expert so please correct me if I am wrong but I do not think using the https prefix helps at all with anonimity in this situation. SSL (using the https prefix) is a transport level encryption which means the data is encrypted between your browser and the server. This means anyone intercepting your feed cannot know what you are saying. This serves no purpose because you are posting a public comment. SSL does nothing else. It does not hide your ip or anything.
Phil 31 Aug, 2013 – 1:27 am
“This means anyone intercepting your feed cannot know what you are saying.”
It would have been mnore accurate to say “this means anyone intercepting your feed would need to break the encryption to know what you are saying.” I have no understanding of encryption and who can break what. I always assume everything I do on the internet is public.
Phil,
In this case, the addition just hides the email address you give from plain-text transmission. That’s all. Clearly anyone monitoring can correlate an encrypted posted transmission with a post time.
One caveat is the gravatar. The gravatar email ID is encrypted prior to serving the associated pic. Gravatar could be compromised of course then “they” automatically know everywhere you post which uses gravatar.
Phil,
Of course it also allows Craig/mods to login without revealing a password to snoopers, but that doesn’t effect us plebs.
@AlcAnon
Ok, I see. Ta.
Acanon @ 1;18 am Lol
That Palin is daft ( Putting it Mildly ) i do not doubt
But her statement i wonder, has razor sharp purpose ( unwittingly ? ) Like the bbc showing images of India, or pakistan anti gov protesters, and saying it is Green Square in Tripoli, Meanwhile in the real Green Square over 1 million people were there in support of Ghadafi
or the more recent case when the bbc put up a foto from Iraq, 2005, a child jumping over rows of excavated bodies – and calling it chemical victims in Syria, The masses watch, and read this shit, damage is done, So according to Palin’s wording Syria is Bombing Syria. She is, has always been, One Dangerous Cretin
Ben,
Don’t believe the hype. Although there’s been some interesting suggestions recently.
When we’ve reached the point where Obama is about to bomb Syria and Sarah Palin is calling for restraint.
I’ve just lost it at this point.
What’s coming next?
Same here AA..it’s all just Fugazi
Wonder if Sarah is worried cos she can see Russia from her window Lol
to think that she could have become the president, OMG, But then again we had Boy bush, then Obomber,